Brick House

by Daniel Nayeri

  When the two DTs bore down on the kid with the business ends of their firearms, he shrieked and threw the roses up in panic. They poofed into a saggy cloud of petals. Mustard fluttered his empty hands like he’d burned himself. Mack grimaced. She holstered her Magnum.

  “What’re you doing here, Mustard?”

  “The question is: What are you doing here, Detective?”

  It was Mrs. Bieman. She rushed over to the boy and held him by the shoulders. “Could have been an intruder, ma’am, intending deadly harm,” said Mack.

  “Well, it wasn’t,” said Mrs. Bieman, with all the indignation she could muster over a burp. “It’s a young boy.”

  “Same as our perpetrator, ma’am,” said Mack. She peered deep into Mustard’s eyes, trying to see if he was a ghul. Not that she could tell. But maybe there was something, some glint of newborn evil. But Mrs. Bieman seemed to know the kid from before Randy’s crime.

  “Look what you did to his flowers,” said Mrs. Bieman.

  “I got them for you, Mrs. Bieman,” said Mustard. A real Oliver Twist routine, forlorn and dirty. You just wanted to feed him soup.

  Clara ran from the hallway. “Muth-toad!” She hugged his knees; he patted her head.

  “You said you weren’t expecting a visitor,” said Mack. Mrs. Bieman checked to make sure the hairpins were still jammed into place. She lifted her chin so she could talk down her nose at the bungling investigators, but a gassy buildup made her press it down into her neck again. “My husband wouldn’t approve, all right? He thinks Clara will catch something.”

  “You help orphans when he’s not home?” said Saul. She seemed like an unlikely candidate for Mother Teresa of Gramercy Park.

  “Mustard showed up at our door a few weeks ago, and I just give him breakfast sometimes,” said Mrs. Bieman. “Is that against the law? He’s freezing in the clothes they give him in the foster home.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” said Mack.

  “He’s far nicer to Clara than her own brother, and I don’t see a problem with it.”

  “I do chores,” offered Mustard.

  That was the end of it. It was time to go. They were shaking down a depressed housewife, an orphan, and a little girl scared of her goldfish. May as well clap the irons on a diabetic nana.

  Mack pulled out her sunglasses. As Saul put on his socks and shoes, she said, “Just one more question. What does your husband do?”

  Mrs. Bieman snorted, then let a burp escape. “Who knows,” she said. “Is thinking too highly of yourself a job?”

  “Only in Washington,” said Mack.

  “He’s head of research at Sun Chemical, but mostly he swans around taking credit for the work his assistants do.”

  “So you didn’t meet him in biology class?”

  Mrs. Bieman blorted again. She seemed like a miracle of science herself. “I met him at a dinner party a few years ago for a do-nothing friend of mine on the Upper East Side. He was her husband’s college roommate, and I was bored, so, you know, we got together.”

  Saul got up and opened the door. Mack smiled at Clara. “Oh, right,” said Mack. “Do you keep any fish on the premises?”

  “I have an angry goldfish,” said Clara.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” said Mrs. Bieman.

  “We’ll be the one asking the questions, ma’am.”

  They retrieved Ari and put back Princess Fashion Show. Nobody said anything until the three detectives got outside to the bike. Mrs. Bieman was holy pissed and promised to call their “manager.” A sunny winter day. The breeze felt like a hug from Caesar’s friends. Then Ari said, “You tell anyone about that tiara, and I’ll finish the both of youse. In your sleep. Demean me again like that — the Talking Frog bit? The fishes you’ll be sleeping with . . . Why does your pocket smell like feet?”

  “AM I THE only one who thinks the orphan is playing us?” said Mack.

  “Yeah,” said Ari. “He’s a friggin’ poster child for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

  “My point exactly,” said Mack as they walked up to Sun Chemical Labs, a corporate warehouse on the West Side piers. Next to the ranch-style complex was a storehouse for the hard-drive farm and a backup generator large enough to run Atlantic City for a few nights.

  “Maybe he’s running a scam,” said Mack. “He was snooping around the house last night.”

  They opened frosted glass doors. Everything in the lobby was ergonomic and shades of white. You got the feeling the place could double as a nightclub or the staff lounge of the SS Enterprise. The receptionist sat behind an egg-shaped desk, listening to music on his headphones. His gray gingham tie ended in a square line, like he thought office work was ironic.

  Saul put a finger to his ear. “Central, this is Ji-Ji. Do you copy?” They heard the crackling sound and then, “Go ahead, Ji-Ji. This is Central.”

  “Angie? Is that you?”

  Maybe a flirty giggle or just static. “Yep, still at the desk. Maria’s kid is sick.”

  “Angie, you overworked darling, could you run a search on a Sandra Bieman, B as in ‘broke-down’? See if she has any priors. And one on the name Mustard, as in French’s yellow . . .”

  “Sure,” said Angie. “But that second one might take a while without a real name.”

  “No problem,” said Saul. “Thanks.”

  Another burst of static. Either the electronics in the lab were breaking up the signal or that Angie had a thing for tall, dark, and married. Not that she would know.

  Mack tapped on the plastic desk. The receptionist bobbed his head, jiggered his eyebrows to say, “Go ahead,” but didn’t bother to pull out an earphone.

  Mack said, “Dr. Bieman.” Then she raised her voice. “Here to see Dr. Bieman!”

  “Yeah, I got it,” said the receptionist. His hair was greasy and seemed insincere. The collar of his shirt was stained with last night’s alcohol sweating out. Mack leaned on the desk.

  Saul said, “All we know is the orphan isn’t Randy’s wish. The mom has known him for weeks. But I’ll give you the weird stuff.”

  “Kids are just weird,” said Ari over the comm channel. “My sister had a kid who dried the bed till he turned fifteen.”

  “Yeah, but this is really . . . fishy,” said Mack. As soon as it came out, she tried to suck it back through her teeth, but it was too late.

  “Now, why would you say something like that?” said Ari. “You think my people don’t have enough trouble?”

  Mack’s hands made a strangling motion at Saul’s coat pocket. Everything was something with Ari. “I was just saying,” said Mack. “Don’t spin it that way.”

  “What way? Fishes are dishonest? They are imbued with certain immoral tendencies? What, what?”

  “Sometimes they smell funny is all,” said Mack, wondering if the hipster was ever going to give them directions to Bieman’s office. He didn’t seem to do anything in the way of paging Dr. Bieman. She knocked again on the desk, but he was too cool to do anything twice.

  “Oh, so that’s it! Saul, are you hearing this bigot?”

  Saul answered in a neutral drone, “You have to admit, some of your people smell bad after three days in a barrel on Mott Street.”

  A long pause.

  Ari was boiling himself into a bouillabaisse. “All these years,” he said finally, “and now it comes out. My best friend thinks I’m fishy. Fine. Whatevuh.”

  “You’re a fish,” Saul protested.

  “I want out of this pocket, you — you gorilla. What do you think of that, Middle East? You are hairy like a baboon. I choke on the hairballs from your jungle-man body. This whole case stinks like a friggin’ ape!”

  Saul shut off his comm unit and pressed his pocket closed. More race-related insults continued to muffle out like an ostrich screaming in a snowbank. Mack finally reached over the desk and palmed the hipster receptionist’s face like a basketball. He jerked, but she held on. “WTF,” said the receptionist through Mack’s fingers, pulling out his earpho
nes. “What’re you doing?” She’d smudged his thin layer of eyeliner.

  Mack leaned over the desk, nose to nose. “I. Need. To. See. Dr. Bieman. Now,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  “Gaw,” said the hipster. “I did that already. You can go up whenever.”

  “Where is he?” said Mack.

  “Hello? Third floor?” he said.

  Mack stood back and pointed at her own cheek. “You got a little schmutz there.” They went to the elevator and pushed three.

  On the way up, Mack twiddled the snap on her holster. “And the mother,” she said. “Claims she met the dad a few years ago. What do you think?”

  “You think he’s Randy’s stepdad?” said Saul.

  “I mean, how long is a few years? The kid’s what, thirteen years old?”

  The doors opened on the third floor.

  “Maybe Randy’s wish is off blasting a biological dad somewhere in his mom’s past,” said Mack. “Maybe his dad is the milkman.”

  “Let’s ask,” said Saul.

  Dr. Bieman stood in the hall outside his office in his white lab coat, looking over the test results of a junior researcher. He nodded and signed. The junior scuttled off with the clipboard. The doctor peered over his bifocals at the two visitors. A six-foot churlish mesomorph, either a cop or a sailor, and a biker in black leather, with hair thermometer red. The other doctors were no doubt already constructing plausible scenarios for comedy. Dr. Bieman wasn’t fascinated with comedy.

  He forced a rectangular smile and approached with his hand out. Saul would have shaken the hand, but it went limp in his grip. A dead fish, thought Saul, grinning to himself. “Dr. Bieman, thank you for meeting us,” said Saul. “Do you know if you are Randy’s real father or if your wife slept around behind your back?”

  The doctor swiped his hand back and put it in his lab coat. “Who are you?”

  “Sorry about my partner,” said Mack, showing the police ID. “What he means is, how many years ago did you meet your wife at the dinner party of your college buddy and his do-nothing lady?”

  “Follow me, if you don’t mind.”

  The doctor turned on his heel and clipped back to his office. He preferred the authority his desk provided, looking down on slightly lowered chairs. Mack and Saul followed. His glass office overlooked the main laboratory, where half a dozen scientists were working at various experiment stations. Mack took a seat. Saul leaned on the door frame, out of earshot — Ari was still foaming.

  “The answer to your question is fourteen years. But I assure you, I am Randy’s real father. He was, how would you say, the motivation for our marriage.”

  “But you don’t know for sure,” said Saul.

  “I know,” said Dr. Bieman.

  “You ran a test?” said Mack.

  “Look around you, officers. I can run a paternity test as easily as you can use a microwave.”

  “So you’re a science guy,” said Saul.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Bieman, all condescension around the beak and peepers, “I am a science guy. I am also very busy and very law-abiding, so I’ll need to know what this is about immediately. Where are you from?”

  “Me?” said Mack. “New York, born and raised.” She said Nu Yowk like Brooklyn coiffee. Saul tilted his chin. At the luncheonette her story had been Ireland with a brogue.

  Dr. Bieman sighed at the boobery he was forced to deal with. “I meant your police division. I will also need your badge numbers and your precinct boss.”

  “No need to play it that way,” said Saul.

  “And what way is that, officer?” said Dr. Bieman, folding his hands.

  “Like the snippety science guy. We’re here because we have reason to believe you and your family are in danger.”

  “By the way,” said Mack, “we’re not officers; we’re detectives. We tell the officers what to do.”

  Bieman’s lips pursed. His balding forehead was corrugated like the knobs of a burette clamp.

  “What does that mean?” he said, squinting over his specs. Mack could see why the assistants acted like simpering domestics.

  “Means we did better in cop school,” said Mack.

  “It means you need to answer some questions,” said Saul.

  “Why would anyone want to hurt my family?”

  “You’d be surprised all the things people want,” said Mack. She put her boots up on the corner of Bieman’s desk.

  “Is this about my research?”

  “What’s your research?” said Mack.

  “The biochemical response patterns of —”

  “No.”

  A few rounds of silence. The doc racked his over-applauded brain for answers to his own self-centered questions. Must have been a vicious know-it-all when he was little. He was Randy’s dad, all right. That’s all they needed for now. Mack dropped her boots from the desk and took out a permanent marker from her jacket. “Well,” she said, grabbing the beaker mug on Bieman’s desk. “Call us if anything weird happens.” She wrote the number on the side of the glass.

  “Wait,” said the doctor. “We didn’t solve anything. What about assigning some kind of protection?”

  “We’ve already solved all kinds of things,” said Mack, getting up to leave. “Found out you’re Randy’s family. The sign outside says kids aren’t allowed in the lab area. And you’re having the kind of marital troubles that keep you here at the office all night.”

  Mack explained the last part with a nod at the metal locker in the corner. “You keep clothes and toiletries here, maybe a grad student to keep you company?”

  The doctor went radioactive. He spurted a bunch of fallout sounds. “How dare you . . . himminy, himminy, himminy . . . Just what do you . . .” His acidic tone would have burned through a submarine hull. He stood, pressed his palms flat on the desk, and leaned forward. “You’re implying I cheat on my wife.”

  “Do you?” said Mack.

  “Get out of my lab,” hissed the doctor.

  “Why so defensive, Doc?” said Mack.

  Bieman compressed a response into a furious squeeze of his eyelids. Mack walked past Saul out into the hallway. The doctor stared at Saul. When the detective didn’t scram, he began to fidget. Bieman plopped back into his chair and put his hands between his knees.

  “What do you know about a kid named Mustard?” Saul asked.

  The doctor had burned up all his fission and sat. “He’s a strange little urchin who skulks around our home. I’ve told my wife to call the police the next time she sees him.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be much of a home these days,” said Saul.

  Bieman looked adrift behind his bifocals. “You’ve made fun of me enough, Detective. I made my mistakes in the past, like everyone. But I’m not cheating on my wife. It’s not much of a home, fine. Say what you like. But I’d still rather not have old lady Cavanaugh’s foster children hanging around it.”

  Saul hooked a thumb under the band of his skullcap and said, “Apologies, Dr. Bieman.” Saul turned to leave.

  “Close the door behind you,” said Bieman.

  Saul turned back. “So you know Cavanaugh?” he said.

  “Huh? What?” said the doc.

  “Mustard’s foster care. You know where he lives and that Ms. Cavanaugh is old. You’ve met her.”

  The doctor jerked his head up, then thought better of saying anything. Saul bowed again and smiled. “Don’t bother,” he said, “The truth might spill out. Best wishes, Doctor.”

  Saul stepped into the hall and closed the door on Bieman. The man seemed like nothing more than a barrel of green chemical guilt, eating holes in itself somewhere on the dark floor of the ocean.

  On the way to Mrs. Cavanaugh’s, Saul chewed on the mystery of his new partner’s fake accents. She was lying about something. Maybe she was Internal Affairs, mixing up her phony backstory. Maybe the brass knew he was a djinn and had sent her to investigate. After all these years, maybe it was time to move on again, leave the policing to pigs li
ke Alvarez and wolves like Goodie.

  Now Saul had two cases to solve. On top of the Bieman murders, he’d have to dig the dirt on his new partner. And the thing about digging dirt is that it has a way of turning into a grave.

  Angie interrupted his thoughts. She came over the line and called them back to the 3-1. “Reroute to headquarters, Ji-Ji. Request of the chief of detectives.”

  “I’m here, too,” said Mack.

  “That’s great, honey.”

  The early lunch crowd was tapping a foot at the pizza counters or customizing their own salads. The smell of halal chicken and turmeric sizzled off the street-side carts. Nothing said New York like the immigrant guy screaming, “New York!” and selling I ♥ NY shirts from the back of his cousin’s van — Jersey license plate. The traffic on Second Avenue was a heart surgeon’s meal ticket.

  Mack popped the curb in front of the precinct and parked next to the main entry. Inside was the same. Same stale coffee smell. Same cold cement floor. The sergeant at the front desk was as still as a gargoyle with the pallor to match.

  Alvarez was still at his desk, feet up, reading page six. Goodie was still knitting in her housedress and slumber cap. Mack noticed that Goodie’s fingers were monstrous and so knobby you could barely see the needles. Good for wielding a battle-ax or strangling livestock. She had a to-go platter of hot pastrami, prosciutto, and other deli meats on her desk. No bread, no silverware. Just a pile of red meat and a jug of vino to wash it down. Alvarez had four Pixy Stix, acacia honey, and a Diet Coke.

  When he saw Mack and Saul walk in, Alvarez folded his paper and said, “Hey, Saul, says here a cabbie crashed into City Hall. Friend of yours?” Instead of laughing at his own jokes, Alvarez had a habit of puckering his lips and nodding his head in affirmation.

  “I think I read that one,” said Saul. “It said your fairy godmother was the one who crashed into City Hall.”

  Alvarez stopped puckering.

  “That’s true,” added Mack. “I read that article, too.”